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Monitoring of perishable goods in a retail environment

Temperature control and
monitoring is the one of the most significant tools in the handling of
perishable goods. Maintenance of a high relative humidity, and
modification of the atmospheric composition can have a strong add-on
effect, but is no substitute for good temperature control. The DS
solution allows the constant and online monitoring of temperature and
humidity and provides extensive reporting capabilities for compliance
and auditability.
For this type of produce to be sold it has to be available in high
grade and quality condition. This requires that the storage conditions
be optimal. These conditions revolve not only around temperatures and
humidity but additionally, room access control. It is important monitor
conditions consistently and accurately and not only — not just to react
when potential damage already has been done. The ultimate goal is to
maintain a state of health as close as possible to 100 percent
throughout the storage and distribution processes.
Until now, there has been limited ways to comprehensively gather
critical storage information in real-time with distribution to multiple
users. Furthermore, most monitoring systems have severely limited
ability to gather multi-application data.
In most cases no reliable automated data collection and reporting
systems are available leaving users to rely on rigorous and inaccurate
manual recording that takes up precious man-hours to process.
DS has a comprehensive solution to daily cold storage challenges,
providing real-time actionable information for informed decision making
that assists in obtaining the highest levels of product health and
extended shelf-life offering enhanced product quality and safety to the
consumer.
Using this data it is possible for a retailer to validate consumer
complaints against potential failures in the environment in which
produce was stored.
Significant energy savings and reduced costly system downtime can be
achieved by optimising the operations of critical cold storage
infrastructure through the use of Powatherm sensors from DS. These
sensors include a static variant as well as a value added variant that
is able to buffer monitored readings offline. The later would be used to
monitor produce in-transit.
The experience gained by DS and its operators has been harnessed in
the monitoring of Fruit Ripening Chambers in South Africa’s largest
Fresh Produce Market.
South Africa’s official export certification agency for the
perishable produce industry, the PPECB provides impartial and
independent services significantly reducing risks for producers and
exporters. Cold stores must be registered with the PPECB when produce is
intended for export and the solution provided by DS provides the
business intelligence needed to ensure adherence to PPECB ISO 9001-2000
procedures.
Uniquely, DS is also able to provide a service for the yearly SANAS certification of the Powatherm sensors.

Visit the website of DS or email info@ds.co.za to discover awesome #IoT solutions and services. We are proud South African innovators!

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At the office we use a Mikrotik which is connected via fibre to Cool Ideas. We use OpenDNS as a Information Security tool. It prevents ransomware and bots from becoming major incidents within the office.

The router is scheduled to do a daily update via script of the OpenDNS settings. Below is the example:

ITIL mentions the Major Incident process as a special case of the
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an incident with severe negative business consequences and an important
duty of any designated Information Technology (IT) resources is to deal
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process and crisis management in general.

DS has an on board version of the PowaINFRA gateway that can be
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